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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 1

Christianity and Paganism One and the Same

Christianity and Paganism One and the Same.

Now to any person not under the influence of the Holy Ghost, it must appear very strange that buildings erected by the Pagans to perform their superstitious mummery in, should be the very identical kind of buildings required by the Christians in which to carry out their religion, and which they say was ordained by God Himself.

One would think that a religion established by an Almighty God! would be something so different from the superstitious mummery of that poor animal, man, that no part of one would fit into the other. Yet we find the Christian religion sitting in the Pagan Temples as comfortably as the child sits in its mother's lap. As some of the finest Christian Churches were once Pagan Temples.

In the thirtieth chapter of Exodus Mr. Moses tells us that, the Lord instructed him how to build an altar, how to make incense, and in what way it was to be used. What! the Lord came all the way from heaven, did he? to tell Moses how to build an altar and make incense?—why the Pagan priests knew page 34 how to build altars and make incense long before Moses floated in his ark of bulrushes.

The Pagans placed vessels of holy water at the entrance of their Temples, to sprinkle themselves with. Two vessels for that purpose, one of gold, the other of silver, were given to the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi.

To-day the Christians place vessels of holy water at the entrance of their churches for the same purpose.

The Pagan priests had a sprinkling brush.

The Christian priests to-day use a sprinkling brush.

The Pagan priests flavoured their holy water with salt.

The Christian priests to-day do exactly the same.

A boy always attended on the Pagan priests at the altar, with a box containing the incense.

To-day a boy attends on the Christian priests at the altar, with a box containing the incense.

Herodotus tells us the Pagans had a yearly festival called the "lighting up of candles."

The burning of candles to-day by Christians forms no small part of their religious ceremony.

The Pagan priests preserved what they said was the rod of Romulus, with which he performed his auguries.

The Christian priests to-day pretend to show the rod of Moses, with which he performed his miracles.

The Pagans tell us that the rod of Romulus was untouched by the flames when the Temple was burnt.

The Christians to-day believe the same in reference to the image of our Saviour in St. John Lateran, over which the flames had no power though the church itself has been twice destroyed by fire.

Millions of Christians to-day believe that the image of the virgin reprimanded Gregory the Great for passing her too carelessly, and that a crucifix spoke to St. Bridgith, and that another Madonna spoke to the sexton in commendation of the piety of one of her votaries.

The Pagans tell us their image of Fortune spoke twice in praise of those matrons who had dedicated a temple to her.

Millions of Christians to-day believe the image of our Saviour, which for some time before the sacking of Rome wept page 35 so heartily that the good fathers of the monastery were all employed in wiping its face with cotton.

The Pagans declare that the statue of Apollo wept for three days and nights successively.

Millions of Christians to-day believe that one of their images bled very plentifully from a blow given it by a blasphemer.

Now that is nothing more than what was said of the images in the Temple of Juno, since we are told all the images in that temple were seen to sweat blood.

The Pagans had a strong man called Hercules.

The Christians have a strong man called Samson.

Christians do not believe the stories told by the Pagans about Hercules, neither do I believe the stories told by the Christians about Samson, and I defy all the bishops in Christendom to prove that the Christians are not just as deserving of damnation for not believing the stories told about Hercules as I am for not believing the stories told about Samson.

What difference can it make to a story whether told by a Pagan or a Christian? Is not a Pagan image just as likely to break a blood-vessel as a Christian image?